A clearinghouse of news and events about historic Route 66, the Mother Road.

Pevely Dairy plant named to National Register

The old Pevely Dairy Plant, on the more-obscure Chouteau Avenue alignment of Route 66 in St. Louis, was named to the National Register of Historic Places effective Nov. 18, according to an e-mail from the National Park Service.

Pevely Dairy, especially its ice cream, was a St. Louis institution for more than a century. But Pevely Dairy laid off all its workers about a year ago and shut down the plant. Pevely remains as a division of Prairie Farms. Jim Fox wrote this nostalgic article in the Suburban Journals about Pevely’s long presence in the community.

The plant was at Grand Boulevard and Chouteau Avenue in St. Louis. Chouteau was an alignment of Route 66 from 1929 to 1935. Here’s a decent Google Maps image of that corner at Chouteau and Grand, where the Pevely building and its huge sign on the roof have been a local landmark for decades. This is not the factory building that burned; it was the one about a half-block down the street.